The Quebec Ministry of Transport will commence major repairs to the campus Highway 20 overpass (Pont Poultry Cottages) as of November 4, 2016. Phase 1 of the project is expected to last until the end of the year and Phase 2 will take place in the spring.

This weekend – November 4, 5 and 6

Repair work under the campus Highway 20 overpass will begin Friday evening, and as a result, there will be closures on Highway 20 over the weekend.

Congratulations to Dr. Caroline Begg (Plant Science, FMT), the recipient of the Principal's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (Faculty Lecturer). Principal Fortier presented the award at McGill's Fall Convocation held earlier this week. Dr. Begg has long been a supporter of student-led initiatives beyond the classroom and empowers students to be involved in their own learning process. She received the Macdonald Campus Award for Teaching Excellence earlier this year.

Marianne Falardeau-Côté, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences (Supervisor Elena Bennett), "is investigating how climate change is affecting Arctic marine food webs, ecosystem services and the well-being of Inuit communities. Through her research, Marianne hopes to provide knowledge that will help governments sustainably manage ecosystems. Her research was featured in the June 2016 issue of Canadian Geographic".

Breakfast pancakes, a hot cheese muffin or a succulent brownie can become only a memory to those who live with Celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, says Judy Campbell, a Montreal dietitian and gluten-free diet specialist... this culinary specialist who taught dietetic students nutritional and quantity food preparation for 18 years at McGill University’s School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition.

Coming to the aid of eastern Canadian hemp producers is Philippe Seguin, associate professor at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Seguin wants to help farmers in eastern Canada learn more about which hemp cultivars work best in their environment. He and his team of researchers selected 11 cultivars and planted them in seven different environments in Quebec. Seguin kept detailed records of when the seeds were planted and how much fertilizer was used.

Elena M. Bennett of the Department of Natural Resource Sciences is the lead author of Bright Spots: seeds of a good Anthropocene. "The paper describes an effort to identify and propagate social and environmental projects that could reverse a centuries-long pattern in which human prosperity has come at the cost of substantial harm to ecosystems and excluded communities. "

Microbiologist Brian Driscoll took over the helm of the Department of Natural Resource Sciences (NRS) on September 1st.

Growing up in Dundas, ON, Driscoll discovered his love science and agriculture at a young age, thanks to the influence of two uncles - one an organic chemistry professor and the other an apple grower. Through stints as a lifeguard and swimming instructor, he discovered that teaching was something he excelled at and enjoyed.

29-year-old the lead agronomist for a Whistler marijuana company

As a 14-year-old loading soil at a Quebec poinsettia greenhouse, David Bernard-Perron [BSc (AES)'12, MSc'15] never would have expected he'd grow up to be the lead agronomist for a marijuana company in Whistler.

But at 29, that's exactly what he's doing, and the company he works for is at the forefront of quickly growing industry.

[Former Macdonald student] Prosanta Chakrabarty travels the world searching for fish that few humans have ever seen. The LSU researcher wants to learn what these underwater unknowns can teach about evolution and the history of the earth.

He's a modern-day explorer, swimming through murky waters and diving into caves in search of seldom-seen species.

How do you measure hunger? If anyone can tell you, it’s Hugo Melgar-Quiñonez, Margaret Gilliam Faculty Scholar in Food Security and Director of the McGill Institute for Global Food Security.

“Hunger and food insecurity are very complex phenomena affecting people and countries in different ways,” says Melgar-Quiñonez. “In order to estimate how many people are undernourished or food insecure, we needed diverse methods of quantifying hunger.”

Margaret A. Gilliam Fellowship recipient June Po is a PhD candidate in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences; June works on food security, focusing on the relationships between food security and women’s access to land resources in dryland Kenya. In early 2015, she returned to the rural communities in Kenya to report her research findings to smallholder farmers. This effort has so far been extremely valuable, as she learned multiple ways of translating research into practice.